The Best and Worst S&P 500 Stocks From 2020

2020 is a year many of us won't want to remember. But it ultimately wasn't so bad for stocks – the S&P 500 more than recovered from its March depths, setting numerous record highs in the latter part of the year and finishing 2020 up 16.3%.

Some S&P 500 stocks did much better than others, however.

Tesla (TSLA), which didn't even join the index until late in 2020, was by far and away the index's best performer with a 743.4% gain. The company obliterated expectations for deliveries throughout the year, putting Tesla's original year-end goal of 500,000 deliveries within realistic reach.

Perhaps more importantly, in July, TSLA reported its fourth consecutive quarter of turning a profit. That helped flame speculation that the company would join the ranks of the S&P 500 stocks. Also sparking retail investor interest was the company's August announcement that it would split its stock 5-for-1.

Had it not been for Tesla's inclusion, Etsy (ETSY, +301.6% in 2020) would've been the S&P 500's top stock. The online retailer, which focuses on handmade and other artisan goods, was one of the biggest beneficiaries of a huge shift to e-commerce, with the company's revenues doubling through the first nine months of 2020.

Many of the S&P 500's worst stocks were unsurprisingly related to travel and energy, both of which were gashed in 2020.

Carnival (CCL, -56.9% in 2020) and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCLH, -56.5% in 2020), which were unable to operate for most of the year, were among the index's worst stocks. So was United Airlines (UAL, -50.9% in 2020), as airlines were effectively crippled too. Energy firms such as Occidental Petroleum (OXY, -56.6% in 2020) and Marathon Oil (MRO, -50.4% in 2020) were also bottom-10 components, brutalized by oil prices that at one point turned negative for the year.

You can check out the list below for a full ranking of the S&P 500's stocks based on their total return (price plus dividends). Data and tables courtesy of S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Investing Weekly e-letter for stock recommendations and other investing advice.

sp500
sp500
sp500
sp500
sp500
sp500
sp500
sp500
sp500
sp500

Latest Stories

  • Trump news – live: President blamed Kushner for election loss over Covid testing, report says

    Follow the latest updates

  • US says it won't allow Pearl murder suspect to evade justice

    The U.S. warned Wednesday it won’t allow a Pakistani man who was convicted and later acquitted in the 2002 murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl to evade justice after a provincial court in Pakistan ordered his release. The warning from acting U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen comes days after the Sindh High Court in Pakistan's south overturned a government detention order that Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the key suspect in Pearl’s slaying, should remain in custody. Sheikh was convicted for his role in helping lure Pearl in January 2002 to a meeting in the city of Karachi, during which he was kidnapped.

  • Russia summons UK envoy, expands visa ban list, in response to Navalny sanctions

    MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia said on Wednesday it had summoned Britain's ambassador to tell her it was expanding the number of British citizens banned from entry in response to London sanctioning Russian officials over the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. Navalny is convalescing in Germany after being poisoned in Russia with a Novichok nerve agent, an attack about which Britain and other Western countries have said Russia, which denies wrongdoing, has serious questions to answer. The Kremlin has said it has yet to see evidence that Navalny was poisoned and President Vladimir Putin has suggested the way the incident has been presented in the West is part of a U.S.-backed plot to try to discredit him.

  • Israel may have to pause lightning vaccination programme as Pfizer stocks dwindle

    Israel will pause its world-leading coronavirus vaccination drive for three weeks in January, the health minister said on Thursday, following local media reports that the Pfizer vaccine would run out within 10 days at the current rate. More than 800,000 people have received their first dose of the vaccine in 11 days, making up over 7.4 per cent of the population. For the past two days, they have passed their target of vaccinating over 150,000 people a day. More than 30 per cent of the over-60s have already been vaccinated and the country is on track to inoculate everyone in that age bracket within the next 10 days if they continue at a pace of above 100,000 a day. But as shortages loom, the health ministry has been forced to announce that they will mostly stop administering first doses between January 10 and January 31 to ensure that there is enough stock to give the second dose to the people who have already received the vaccination. Israel had aimed to open the vaccination to the general public within a week but the delay may now push that back by up to six weeks, according to Channel 12 news. Instead, Hezi Levy, the health ministry’s director-general told Kan news that come February there may be a limited widening of the vaccination drive, perhaps with the age threshold lowered to 50.

  • Florida Supreme Court delivers the ‘Holy Grail of lawsuit reform’ in Thursday ruling

    The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday revamped a key legal standard as its conservative majority continued to show a willingness to undo previous decisions that have guided the state’s courts.

  • On Jan. 20, Biden to issue memo freezing Trump administration's midnight regulations

    At noon ET on Jan. 20, after President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated, he will issue a memo to stop or postpone midnight regulations and actions taken by the Trump administration that have not gone into effect by Inauguration Day, Biden transition spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Wednesday.Midnight regulations are created by executive branch agencies during the lame duck period of an outgoing president's administration. Psaki shared some examples, including a rule the Department of Labor is expected to publish that "would make it easier for companies to call their workers independent contractors to avoid minimum wage and overtime protections."Issuing a regulatory freeze is standard practice for incoming administrations, Psaki said, "but this freeze will apply not only to regulations but also guidance documents — documents that can have enormous consequences on the lives of the American people." Biden has already said he will take several executive actions on his first day in office, including rejoining both the World Health Organization and the Paris Agreement, an international treaty on climate change.More stories from theweek.com 5 cartoons about the end of a very, very bad year 'Irritated' Trump will skip his Mar-a-Lago New Year's Eve party Are pandemic relief checks making UBI inevitable?

  • Philanthropist charged with murder for hit-and-run that killed two children

    Rebecca Grossman could face up to 34 years to life in prison if convicted

  • Peruvian president 'deplores' two deaths in farm workers protest, vows to sanction police

    Peru's President Francisco Sagasti has vowed tough action against police after two people, including a teenager, were killed during protests by farm workers over a new controversial agrarian law. "We deplore and reject what happened in La Libertad," ​​said President Francisco Sagasti on his Twitter account on Thursday. A photograph widely published in local media showed a man identified by the interior ministry as a police officer pointing a pistol.

  • Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai jailed after bail revoked

    Hong Kong's highest court on Thursday revoked media tycoon Jimmy Lai's bail after prosecutors succeeded in asking the judges to send him back to detention. Lai had been granted bail on Dec. 23 after three weeks in custody on charges of fraud and endangering national security. Lai is among a string of pro-democracy activists and supporters arrested by Hong Kong police in recent months as authorities step up their crackdown on dissent in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.

  • 'Irritated' Trump will skip his Mar-a-Lago New Year's Eve party

    He's a thousand miles away, but President Trump can't escape the election results.Every year, Trump celebrates New Year's Eve at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, walking the red carpet surrounded by club members. But Trump has spent his holiday trip to Palm Beach "single-mindedly focused on the election results and the upcoming certification process in Congress," leading him to return to the White House before the ball drops this year, CNN reports.Throughout his Mar-a-Lago visit, Trump has "has been in an irritated mood" and "fumed about everything from the election outcome to first lady Melania Trump's renovations to his private quarters," multiple people who spoke with him tell CNN. Trump has also reportedly grown concerned that Iran could retaliate for his decision to kill its top general Qassem Soleimani; Trump ordered the Jan. 3 strike on Soleimani from Mar-a-Lago. That's potentially another reason Trump wants to get back to Washington, one person told CNN.Overall, Trump has largely been fixated on Jan. 6, when Congress, led by Vice President Mike Pence, will meet to affirm President-elect Joe Biden's win, sources tell CNN. Pence has reportedly made it clear to Trump that there's nothing he can do to overturn the results, but Trump still spent his Florida trip pushing senators to oppose the certification. Even so, there is a sign Trump has realized he's not going to be in the White House much longer: He's reportedly "polling" allies to determine whether he'll go to Biden's inauguration, CNN reports.The official White House schedule for Thursday confirmed Trump and the first lady would depart Florida for the White House at 11 a.m. Read more at CNN.More stories from theweek.com 5 cartoons about the end of a very, very bad year Are pandemic relief checks making UBI inevitable? Frustration builds over slow pace of vaccine rollout

  • 11-year-old child charged with murder after after woman shot dead in Colorado

    ‘Tragic incidents like these affect us all,’ says Montrose County Sheriff’s Office patrol lieutenant Ty Cox

  • Turkish police detain Islamic State suspects -Anadolu

    Turkish police detained people suspected of ties to the Islamic State militant group in an operation targeting a total of 35 foreign suspects in Istanbul on Thursday, state-owned Anadolu news agency reported. It said the counter-terror squad police carried out simultaneous raids on 34 addresses in 14 districts of the city after receiving intelligence about possible militant attacks over the New Year period. Prosecutors in the capital Ankara ordered the arrest of a further 15 suspects in another Islamic State-related investigation, Anadolu also said.

  • Heavy snow expected in Texas; storm could spawn tornadoes

    A winter storm moving across southwestern Texas on Wednesday could dump more than a foot (0.30 meters) of snow before moving eastward and possibly spawning tornadoes in parts of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi on New Year's Eve, according to weather forecasters. Jeremy Grams, a forecaster with the National Weather Services’ Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, said 12 to 18 inches (0.30 meters to 0.46 meters) of snow was possible west of the Pecos River in southwest Texas, with another 3 to 5 inches (0.13 meters) predicted for western Oklahoma by Thursday. Tornadoes are possible as the cold air moving eastward with the storm collides with moisture and warmer temperatures from the Gulf of Mexico, Grams said.

  • Trump returns to White House early, offers year-end message

    President Donald Trump delivered a year-end video message Thursday after returning early from vacation, highlighting his administration’s work to rapidly develop a vaccine against COVID-19 and rebuild the economy. As the end of his presidency neared, Trump cut short his stay at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida and got back to the White House a day ahead of schedule. Upon his return, Trump released a video message over Twitter to underscore his administration’s work on the vaccine, economic stimulus checks and America’s “grit, strength and tenacity” in the face of challenges.

  • Hunter charged with homicide in death of Pennsylvania teen shot while watching sunset

    Kenneth Troy Heller, 52, agreed to deal with prosecutors two months after the death of 18-year-old Jason Kutt, the district attorney said.

  • U.S. warships transit Taiwan Strait, China denounces 'provocation'

    TAIPEI/BEIJING (Reuters) -Two U.S. warships sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait on Thursday drawing protest from Beijing, the second such mission this month and coming almost two weeks after a Chinese aircraft carrier group used the same waterway. China, which claims democratically run Taiwan as its own territory, has been angered by stepped-up U.S. support for the island, including arms sales and sailing warships through the Taiwan Strait, further souring Beijing-Washington relations. The U.S. Navy said the guided missile destroyers USS John S. McCain and USS Curtis Wilbur had "conducted a routine Taiwan Strait transit Dec. 31 in accordance with international law".

  • Report: Trooper under investigation dies in apparent suicide during house search

    A Louisiana State Police trooper died Wednesday in an apparent suicide as his colleagues were searching his home as part of a criminal investigation, law enforcement officials told the Associated Press.

  • Teen arrested after broad-daylight bike gang attack on SUV in New York City

    Police have asked for the public’s help identifying the other teens involved in the attack

  • How stimulus checks could be withheld from the Americans who need them most

    The government has begun distributing $600 stimulus checks to millions of Americans. But actually getting access to that money may be another story.Even as record numbers of Americans spent months unemployed amid the coronavirus pandemic, Congress took months to agree to send out another round of stimulus checks and boost unemployment benefits after the last relief package expired. Millions of Americans suffered during that time, and, as The New York Times reports, often had to overdraw from their bank accounts to pay for groceries and other essentials. In return, banks charged those people overdraft fees, and have often locked people out of their accounts until those fees are paid.That means the $600 stimulus checks, which the government frequently deposits directly into bank accounts, could be out of reach for the people who need them most. That includes Morgan Banke, who told the Times she has only been able to pay either her rent or car insurance every month, and has overdrawn from her Iowa credit union to cover the rest. She asked the credit union to temporarily waive her fees so she could use the stimulus money, but because it had done so three times in the past, it turned her down.Many major banks — Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo among them — have said they'll waive accounts' overdrawn status when the checks come in. But many regional banks and credit unions haven't made the same promises, and have even closed down accounts with overdrawn balances, leaving Americans to get their checks another, slower way. Read more at The New York Times.More stories from theweek.com 5 cartoons about the end of a very, very bad year 'Irritated' Trump will skip his Mar-a-Lago New Year's Eve party Are pandemic relief checks making UBI inevitable?

  • Syrian army says Israeli strike near Damascus kills soldier

    Israeli jets fired missiles on targets near Damascus early Wednesday, killing one Syrian soldier and wounding three others, Syria’s military said. A Syrian military official said the attack took place after midnight in the Zabadani region in the Damascus countryside and that it targeted a Syrian air defense unit and caused material damage. A war monitoring group said the strike also hit a weapons and rocket warehouse for Iran-allied militias.